Brazil: Peasants in Lagoa Nova, Sergipe, demand withdrawal of sugar cane company from their legitimate land

Since 1991, the agricultural company SANAGRO, one of the biggest producers of sugar cane in the north-east of Brazil, has been trying to keep off 90 peasants’ families of the Lagoa Nova community from the land which legally belongs to these families, in the north-east of Brazil. In 1994, the Brazilian government expropriated the land in order to redistribute it to small peasants in accordance to the agrarian reform programme.

During the expropriation process, the SANAGRO company, who was tenant of the land at that time, succeeded in being officially recognized as the previous owner of the land. For 12 years now, SANAGRO has been using its political and economic influence in order to stop the process of expropriation. Most of all, it has blocked the transfer of the land to the agrarian reform institute INCRA by repeatedly seeking appellate remedy. Several times, one of the judges of the Brazilian Supreme Court of Justice has ruled in favour of the company, i. e. against the legal situation.